The 84-year-old is said to have put his hands up the woman's shorts while she applied powder to his face.

Bruce Harris, 90, gave evidence at Southwark Crown Court via video link from Australia and said if he had seen his brother grope the woman he would have shouted at him.

Wearing a dark grey suit, lilac shirt and grey tie, he told the court he became the artist and musician's manager in 1981.

He said: "He was unhappy with his management team in the UK. He had fallen on relatively hard times and was not happy with the way they were treating him."The former advertising boss also took control of his brother's finances.

"Rolf has never shown any interest in the financial side of life," he told the jury of six men and six women.

Rolf Harris is accused of 12 counts of indecent assault on four women between 1968 and 1986, all of which he denies.

“That's just not possible”

Bruce Harris on the charges levelled at his younger brother

Prosecutors have called a number of supporting witnesses who are not named in the charges, including the make-up artist who claimed Harris was nicknamed "the octopus".

The freelancer, who was in her 20s at the time, said he repeatedly put his hands inside her baggy shorts as far as her hips while making a programme in Australia in the mid-1980s.

Bruce Harris said: "That's ridiculous. He would never do that and I wouldn't let him do that, and he knew I wouldn't let him do that. That's just not possible."

Sitting as he gave evidence, he added: "I would have shouted at him, I would have demanded that he stopped. But it never happened, it would never have been something that he would have done.

"I would have taken the elder brother approach to a younger brother misbehaving."